I Wish I Was Dead
by Seraya7
Summary: Doesn't the title say it all? Miserable at summer camp with a counselor who could be described as Icky with a V, Timmy learns the hard way what happens when he accidentally says the fateful words. Warning: Crosses over with Danny Phantom.
1. Prologue

Pain, and misery, and all things horrible.

I wondered for a moment why, why, why Vicky was going so far out of her way to torture me. Why? Why would she hate me so much?

But Vicky never needed a reason…

Summer camp. It was supposed to be fun. It was supposed to be a glorious thing, free of crazy teachers and homicidal babysitters… but Vicky was there. Vicky was a counselor, along with a group of other teens. Vicky couldn't be _my_ counselor, of course, that was a weird, quiet boy named Danny. But Vicky was head counselor. Head. As in, in charge of all the others. How the heck had she managed it? What other reason than to torture me had Vicky conspired to be the head teenage counselor on the boy's side of camp? I didn't even think they let girls in, turns out I was wrong…

The boat, that Vicky had tossed me in and pushed out into the rapids, had been rotten straight through. It gave me nightmares for a week, nightmares of being tossed across the sharp slimy rocks in the cold, dark water… If my godparents hadn't been there, I might have actually died… They got me onto the shore, but couldn't do anything else, since I was knocked out and couldn't wish for anything. My counselor, the nice one, Danny, found me and helped me out, dried me off and got me to the infirmary. I tried to tell him about Vicky but he wouldn't listen.

So I wound up with a cold for my suffering, and without a moment alone to wish myself better. Besides, everyone knew I was sick by now. So I had to stay that way, cold and miserable and alone… nearly alone. I couldn't even talk to Cosmo and Wanda—how could I? I shared a cabin with five other boys, none of whom I knew. And that night… tonight Vicky was taking our cabin on an overnight hike.

I might as well be dead.

"I wish I was dead…" I muttered fervently, anything to get away from Vicky and her evil… then I realized what I'd just said. A collective gasp rose from my godparents, now hidden in my backpack somewhere. No, I didn't mean it, you know I didn't mean it! Why weren't they listening? Why wasn't I saying these words with my voice anymore?

Cold overtook me.


	2. A Mistake in Choice of Words

I… I died? Just like that? No reason, no reason except for a mistake in choice of words?

I stared down at myself… lying separate… feeling so empty, hollow, detached. That couldn't be me, lying there on that bunk, pale and unmoving. Or else it couldn't be me here, watching. Maybe I was just dreaming… yes, it was a dream.

Geez. Everyone was right. My hat was silly. At least, it looked silly sitting on the head of a bucktoothed boy who had to be sleeping… and it wasn't my hat. It couldn't be. My hat was on my head, I could feel it, I could reach up and take it off and stare at it… but I could see the other boy, the sleeping boy, _through_ my hat… It looked exactly like my hat except I could see through it…

But I couldn't really be dead, could I? Granting a child's idle wish to be dead had to be against the Rules, right? And especially without giving the child a chance to take it back… And Cosmo and Wanda wouldn't grant a wish like that, would they?

So it was a dream, naturally, and since I had no problems believing this I had no problems drifting to the floor, floating, flying. I looked back up to see if my godparents were there, but they were nowhere to be seen.

"Idiot," I muttered to myself… well, who else would listen to me? "Why would you wish to be dead? There's hope, there's always hope, even with Vicky! Camp only lasts for two more weeks, then I'd be home-free, but no. Always gotta wish for something. Always gotta do the stupid thing." I paused. "Wait, what am I upset about? After all, it's only a dream… a disturbingly life-like dream, but still…"

There was a knock on the cabin door.

"Oh, Turner!" Vicky's voice screeched in a singsong way. "You wouldn't want to miss the overnight trip, now, would you?"

Oddly perky choice of words, for her, but here she tried to hide her evil from the others, her fellow counselors and the few adults in charge on top of that. Didn't want to lose her privileges, I guess. I sat, or possibly floated, there, unsure of what to do, when she banged harder.

"Turner!" she snarled, and bashed the door open. Instinctively I dove under the nearest bed, not really noticing the fact that the cobwebs under there went undisturbed at my touch. But Vicky didn't see me, or at least she didn't see the part of me that was thinking and wandering around. She marched over to the boy, the other me, lying dead on the top bunk.

"Wake up! We're leaving!" she roared but it didn't move… him. As for _me_, I slithered out from under the bed to get a better look.

She jabbed the boy in the ribs with her sharp fingers, and frowned when he still didn't respond. "Don't play dead, Turner, you can't fool me. Everyone knows you can't die of a cold." I could feel the anger rising in her as she grabbed his arm and pulled.

_No… she was going to rip my arm out of its socket!_ Horrified, bracing myself against the pain that couldn't possibly come, I squeezed my eyes shut and covered them with my hands. But I didn't hear the disturbingly squelchy crack my imagination provided, and so I risked a peek.

She had only tugged at me, at him, and his head had flopped over. Now she looked… odd. _Scared. She's actually scared._ Icky Vicky was scared of something. She was actually afraid for my life? Or just that she might have killed me? But the fear on her face icicled over with hard coldness, and she grabbed him around the waist, flinging him over her shoulder like he, like, like I was just an old backpack or something. And she jumped out the window with me.

"No!" I screamed, wildly trying to catch her. She was going to—she was going to dump the body! My body! "Cosmo, Wanda! HELP!"

I screamed at the top of my lungs, screamed like I'd never screamed before, screamed like… like… like a horror movie on surround sound turned all the way up.

No one heard me. No one cared. No one _could_ hear me, I corrected myself firmly, but I knew—no one around here cared.

I had to follow Vicky.

I flew—yes, flew—out the window. It was hard to think about, but easy to accept, seeing as how I grew up with an overactive imagination and fairies. I could fly, it was a breeze to zip through the trees after Vicky, but all I cared about was following her. Hunting her down, railing at her for killing me—because, yes, it was her fault. I may have wished for it but it was her torture that brought it on, and it couldn't be Cosmo or Wanda's fault, they had to grant my wishes, they had no choice…

She stopped.

It wasn't quite a ravine, not deep enough, but there were thick bushes at the bottom. And without apparently even stopping to think about it, she hurled my body over the edge.

"Good riddance, twerp!" she howled after me.

How could she? I mean, I knew she was evil, but how could she dump me like that, how could she not even care, worse, how could she even act gleeful about _my death_? She liked torturing me, but I never thought she wanted me dead…

"No!" I screamed again, like it would make a difference. Vicky didn't hear me, couldn't see me, and could care less.

What could I do? What could I do!? I was dead, _I was dead_, and no one seemed to—

What else could I do? Without thinking, I leapt over the side, after my body…


	3. Traumatized by Your Lunch

Old wood planks were in front of my face.

I yelped and sat up quickly. Unlike my memory, I was sitting on the floor of my cabin. I glanced around and—yes—my stuff was still there, on the top bunk of the one in the corner, and there… there was no body. It had only been a dream, obviously.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I slipped out the door… the sun had never seemed brighter, my life never happier, my…

"…He didn't want to come. Said he wasn't feeling up to it." Vicky. I spotted her a little ways away, talking to Danny.

"Poor little guy," Danny commented. I made a face, but since neither of them had seen me yet it was pretty pointless. "I can keep an eye on him while you're gone."

"Uh, no," Vicky said in a rush, "that won't be nesessary. He, um, said he wanted to be left alone." What was she up to…? I circled closer, suspiciously, noticing the slightly frantic, plastered grin on her face.

Danny raised his eyebrows at her. "Um, okay, but I'd still better check in on him every once in a while."

She snapped, and her fake grin dropped into a snarl. "Are you deaf!? I said keep _away_ from him, got it?"

"Okay, okay, I got it…" he muttered quickly, his eyes big as baseballs. Poor, unsuspecting Danny, at last witness to the hellspawn that was Icky with a V. She slapped her grin on again.

"Great! We're getting along fabulously!" she cried in a chipper sort of way.

Danny breathed a sigh of relief, his breath visible in the… warm summer sunshine? That didn't even make sense. Was he smoking or something? And now he was finally eyeing her suspiciously, his eyes darting all over the place.

_Come on, Vicky, leave… leave…_ _leave so I can come out in the open, so I can tell this guy how evil you are and maybe this time he'll believe me…_

"Uh… listen…" he began, and I rolled my eyes. He was trying to have a conversation with her? Amateur. "You… um…"

"What?" she snapped, expecting insults or groveling, I'm sure.

Suddenly his eyes lit up, and he started talking again. "Do you know any good ghost stories?"

"What?" Now she was disbelieving. I didn't blame her. Carefully, I slipped out to where he could see me and made the cut it out motion frantically.

"Uh…" Guy really had trouble forming a sentence. "Like, true stories about kids who died out here, or anything? Slit throats, that sort of thing?"

He just was not getting it. I pointed at Vicky, then mimed her demonic stance and laughter, her swinging a chainsaw, then I collapsed theatrically on the ground, clutching my throat and twitching.

"…or were mauled by a chainsaw-wielding madman? Anything like that at all?"

Vicky stared at him flatly. "No. Sounds fun, but no. Why are you asking me?"

Danny finally ripped his eyes away from me to look at her again. "Oh, you know, overnight camping, campfires, ghost stories. Just thought I'd ask—oh, would you look at the time! You'd better get going!"

He ushered the bewildered Vicky off in the general direction of the trail, and turned back around frantically.

I sighed. "Finally! I thought she'd never leave!"

Danny froze, and stared at me. "Timmy?"

"No duh, Einstein," I snapped. That psychotic dream had not left me in the best of moods. "Now do you believe me? She's evil! She's Icky with a V! Do you even listen to Chip Skylark?"

"Oh, man…" he groaned. "I know she's not very nice, but…"

My eyebrows raised so high I wondered if they'd come right off my face. "Not very nice? _NOT VERY NICE?!?!_ Do you even _know_ who you're talking to?"

"Um…"

"Vicky's my babysitter! She's been terrorizing me for, like, _ever_!! You've known her for what, three weeks?" I finished my rant with a good long glare at him, breathing hard. He smiled weakly, and stepped towards me, hands raised like he thought I was some kind of gun-wielding maniac.

"Okay, look, why don't you try and calm down?" he asked annoyedly. "This is the last thing I wanted to have to deal with over my summer…"

I reinforced my glare at him. "You think this is what I wanted my summer to be like?"

"Sorry, sorry," he said apologetically, a little too quickly. "I don't suppose you want to tell me what happened, do you?" Danny added, without much hope in his voice.

"What are you talking about?" I replied angrily. "I already told you all the horrible things she's done to me, and _that_ list was only from this summer!"

"Just what I was afraid of," he said with a sigh, and walked past me to my cabin. Following him inside, I folded my arms across my chest.

"Thanks for listening," I muttered sarcastically. But he was completely distracted, giving my empty bed a suspicious look.

"So she lied."

I could not believe this guy. I'd say he was as dumb as Cosmo, except Danny at least seemed to have some sort of goal he was focused on. Too bad he was ignoring everything I said. "Of _course_ she lied. What do you think I've been telling you?"

Danny turned and gave me a strange look. Kinda sad. "I hate to do this. I really, really do. You seem like such a good kid. But…" He sighed, and pulled a white and green thermos out of his pocket.

Crazy. _You're crazy_. "Uhh, I'm… traumatized by your lunch?" I guessed.

"No." He unscrewed the lid smoothly. "This is the Fenton Thermos. It traps ghosts."

Looney. The only counselor here nice enough for me to actually like belonged in a looney bin! "That's great, Danny, really. And to think I thought I'd be better off hanging out with you than with Vicky."

He pointed the hole at me, then hesitated. "You're not scared? Or apprehensive at all?"

"Nooo… should I be?" I rolled my eyes.

That oddly sad look came back. "You don't even know?"

"Know what?"

He sighed and put the lid back on the thermos, kneeling down in front of me. "Watch this, okay?" With that, he poked me in the chest. Or, wait.. he poked through my chest, I could see his hand and it went through my chest and I could see it through me, through my normal-looking but slightly invisible body…

I screamed.

It was _real_. My dream was _real_.

"I'm a ghost! I'm a ghost? I can't be a ghost!" My legs gave way beneath me, and I collapsed on the floor. "Cosmo, Wanda! Help! I don't want to be a ghost anymore!"

"Hey…" Danny interrupted sympathetically, hovering like he didn't know what to do. "Sorry…"

"I wish I wasn't dead anymore!" I screamed.

Nothing happened. So I tried again.

"I wish I wasn't dead anymore!"

"I know…" Danny tried again. _I wish I wasn't dead anymore._

"I wish I wasn't dead anymore."

They couldn't hear me. They couldn't help. They were gone.

"I wish I wasn't dead anymore…"


	4. FourteenYearOld Ghostbusting Camp Counse

"Hey… hey… it's okay… Timmy, it's okay…"

I glared at him, moving for the first time in what felt like forever. "No, it's not okay. I'm dead! Dead! Do you hear me? Dead!"

"I know…" A strangled breath escaped him. "And I saw you this morning. You were fine. A little sick, a little worse for wear, but…" He shook his head. "What happened to you?"

_I wished I was dead_. "I don't remember," I said sulkily. Even if my fairies were already gone forever, even if I couldn't have fairies anymore now I was dead, I still couldn't bring myself to betray them.

"Oh, man… this is horrible," Danny muttered. "What am I supposed to do?"

That's when I remembered. "Hey…You were trying to trap me!"

Suddenly on the defensive, he shrugged. "Well, yeah, but I… uh…"

"And how come you can see me?" I asked suddenly, accusingly. "Vicky couldn't see me. What makes you so special?"

He glanced away nervously. "Uhh… I… does it really matter?"

Liar. I scowled. "No, I guess not. What's really important now is… _payback_."

I leapt to my feet, or, more accurately, leapt to hover above the floor.

"What?" Danny said incredulously. I turned around to face him again—he climbed to his feet, and he looked mad. So, what did I care? I was dead! What was he gonna do to me, breathe on me?

"I'm going to haunt Vicky for the rest of her life. I'm going to make her as miserable as _she made me_. I'll make _her_ wish _she_ was dead. I'll make her pay. I'll make her sorry."

Danny's jaw dropped. "I… I can't let you do that!"

I laughed, completely without joy. "Yeah, right. What are you gonna do, Mr. Mighty Ghost Busting Camp Counselor? Throw me in jail? Drown me?"

Glaring at me, he clenched his fists. "You don't want to know what I can do to you."

I had to laugh again—it was completely ridiculous, fourteen-year-old ghost-busting camp counselor—besides, if I stopped laughing, I might start crying. "Oooh, I'm really scared!" I mocked, dripping with sarcasm. "Ghostbuster Danny's gonna get me! You can't even touch me," I snapped bitterly. No, I couldn't think about the bad things. _Concentrate on revenge._

"Cut it out," he warned me.

"Oh, did I strike a nerve?" I asked gleefully, kicking off into the air. "Who you gonna call, Danny? Who you gonna call?"

"I'm warning you…"He sounded like a broken record. Beaming down at him, I started humming the _Ghostbusters_ theme song.

"Alright, that's it!" he yelled suddenly. "Don't say I didn't warn you!"

Dork. I flew out of his reach, darting between the bunkbeds nimbly. _Can't hunt what you can't catch…Danny._ _Like to see you stop me now. _A bright flash of light distracted me, and I spun around wildly, trying to get back on track. Didn't work very well, I spun around and darted across the room again to regain my bearings and ran face to face into Danny—someone—something—

It kind of looked like him, but Danny's hair is black, not white, and his eyes are ordinary blue, not this kind of radioactive green, and Danny wasn't wearing a weird black and white jumpsuit kind of thing, and… Danny didn't glow slightly… and he couldn't grab my shoulder…

The guy--was it still Danny?—grinned at me. "Boo."

I screamed and flew straight up, straight out through the roof.


	5. I Don't Deserve This

So he was a ghost? Or something? Probably not a ghost, I couldn't see through him, but not human. Definitely not human. And I'd made him mad.

But… really, what _could_ he do to me? What could be worse than death?

That was not fun to think about, so I stopped, and risked a glance behind me instead.

He was after me!

I pressed myself to go a little faster. He could fly, too! And he was good at it, better than me, speeding and catching up with me.

"Leave me alone!" I screamed at him.

"I can't do that, Timmy!" he called back. "I can't let you pick on some girl whose only fault was being a little mean to you…"

"You don't know Vicky at all!" I screamed into the darkening sky. "She dumped my body!"

The reply that came back to me, "What?", was smaller. Maybe he believed me now… but no. "I still—can't—let you!"

There—I saw it. A tiny flickering orange light, glowing brighter in the darkening evening, down in the trees below. I aimed for it and took a dive.

As the ground zoomed closer, I saw Vicky, sitting right next to the fire, in a lawn chair I was sure she'd made some kid drag up for her. A couple kids were setting up a tent, and a couple others were roasting hot dogs and marshmallows. None of them looked happy about it.

_I'll avenge you, too… but mostly me._

"You!" Vicky pointed at one terrified kid. "Get more firewood!"

The kid glanced fearfully at the trees. "But… it's getting dark."

Vicky chuckled—I longed to wipe that grin off her face. "Then you better do it quickly," she crowed, and kicked him out of the ring of light.

"Vicky!" I screamed as loud as I could. Unfortunately this time, she didn't hear me. Couldn't, probably. "Darn it!" I snapped, and tried kicking her chair over… but of course my leg went right through. "Darn it!" I yelled again. "I can't do anything!"

"Now are you ready to give up?" I glared over my shoulder at Danny, now looking as invisible as me.

He couldn't tell me what to do. Not anymore. "No way! I'll figure it out." Maybe ghosts had to use mental powers—I squeezed my eyes shut, imagining—_Vicky's chair falling over, Vicky falling into the fire, Vicky screaming and the kids cheering and…_

"Timmy, I don't want to hurt you. Believe me! But I told you I can't let you do this…"

I opened my eyes and rolled them at him. "Will you be quiet? I'm trying to concentrate!"

_Vicky being chased by a man-eating lawn chair, Vicky tripping and falling over the cliff she'd thrown me over, Vicky in a rotting canoe on the rapids…_

"Um, you know, ghost powers don't work that way…" he offered helpfully. I glared at him again.

"What would _you_ know about it? _You're_ not dead…" or wait, was he? "…are you?"

A sheepish look crossed his face, and I could see him struggling to come up with an answer. "Um… not really. I'm not… I mean, I don't think so…"

If he didn't even know, how could he boss _me _around? "Great, that's great, now if you'll excuse me…" It took me a split second to decide, then I dove into the fire.

It was _weird_. It felt hot, I could tell it was hot, but it wasn't hurting me. "Oh, this is creepy…" I muttered, but just as I had been hoping, the fire flared up suddenly, causing Vicky to give a little yelp. But then she just sneered and ordered another kid to tend the fire.

"Not so easy, is it?" Danny asked smugly. "Now will you come with me?"

"Never!" I roared, and so did the fire, the flames exploding higher and tossing me out with a shower of sparks.

I yelled with the fear of falling, feeling trees pass through me like cold rough wind.. How long could I keep falling if I couldn't hit anything? Forever?

I hit something.

"Got you!" he cried, tightening his grip on my shoulders and swooping away from the fire, Vicky and my revenge.

"Let me go!" I demanded. "I just died a little while ago! I don't deserve this!" _I don't deserve this. _Cosmo and Wanda were living proof that I didn't deserve Vicky, I didn't deserve being tortured every day after school and sometimes on weekends, I didn't deserve to be traumatized into an early grave.So why had I deserved to be wished to death? Tears? _No, never, not in public…_ I screwed up my face against the ghostly tears that threatened to fall. "Let me go…" I whimpered, sounding totally pathetic, and winced.

"Sorry," Danny replied softly. He actually sounded like he meant it, too. "But you're not leaving me any choice."

"Yes, I am!" I protested weakly. "Just lemme go, come on, please…"

"Sorry, " he repeated, and shifted his grip on me to free a hand.

"What are you doing?" I tried to watch him… turned out to be impossible, until I spotted his free hand coming back around from behind him with the thermos in it.

"I'm sorry," he said for the millionth time. "I really, really am…"

He was going to do it! He was going to trap me anyway! How could he not believe Vicky was evil!? "Keep that thing away from me!" I shrieked, and slapped it out of his hand.

The thermos dropped like a stone, spinning away from us. Did I really do it? "I did it!" I cried happily, grateful to find anything to be happy about. "I really did it! I touched something!"

"Good for you," Danny grumbled irritably, and turned into a dive after it.

Seizing the opportunity, I slithered out of his grip. "Now that I know how, I'm not giving up," I exclaimed with a triumphant laugh. "Catch you later, Ghostbuster!"

"Hey!" Danny cried, but I was already gone, darting through the trees where he couldn't see me, deep in the growing shadows.

_He'll never find me again_.


	6. Kids Who Never Came Home From Summer Cam

Once again, I was cold, and alone, and miserable.

Ghosts shouldn't feel cold. I guess it didn't actually bother me, but I still felt cold. And it was a deep chill that got inside my bones… if I'd still had any…

"I wish I wasn't dead anymore," I whispered for old times' sake, but it didn't make me feel any better. Loneliness was worse than the cold. I missed Cosmo and Wanda so much it made my head ache to think about it… I had never been so alone, not in my life, not since I got my fairies… if they were here, I could be having fun…. They could light a fire and get me a tent, or better yet they could whisk me away home so none of this had ever happened…

An idea struck me. "I wish I hadn't wished I was dead!" I cried hopefully, without any luck. "I wish everything was back to normal and no one remembered any of this?" I tried without much optimism. Not like any wishes could be granted without my fairies. I was beginning to understand why kids who lost their fairies had to forget all about them… could fairies even see ghosts? I couldn't see why not, but I wanted to know for sure, desperately. And without them, of course, I'd never know. If only they were here… Cosmo would help me figure out how to use this to get revenge on Vicky, while Wanda would make sure we didn't kill ourselves or reveal them in the process…

A shadow fell over me. Shivering from fear, I curled up on the ground. Ghosts shouldn't be afraid of the dark, either, but my traumatized imagination was hard at work, filling the dark shadows around me with vampires and anti-fairies and Vicky. Always Vicky. I couldn't stop seeing her throw me carelessly over the cliff. _Good riddance, twerp!_ echoed endlessly in my mind. Then in a rush I'd remember everything else, the flamethrowers, the iron maidens, the hose, the rabid cats, and wonder why, why, why she would do this to me, why she didn't care I was dead, why she didn't care about anything. How could it make her happy to see kids suffer? It was so much easier to dismiss her as evil Icky with a V when I had a line of defense in the form of unlimited magical wishes, when there was something between her and me. Now there was nothing at all, less than nothing—she could no longer touch me, but she'd already done the worst thing she could possibly do to me… left me weak… made me wish I was dead… made me die, and made sure no one else would find out.

I remembered the ghost stories the other kids had told me, about kids who never came home from summer camp. Now I was one of them.

Who would tell Mom and Dad?

Tears pricked my eyes again, now when no one else could see. "I wanna go home…" I whimpered quietly. Revenge against Vicky could wait, if it meant I could go be with my parents again. With me not dead.

No one was anywhere near me, no one could hear me, so finally I let go and let myself sob, wail, cry over everything I'd lost, everyone who'd never see me again and everything I'd never get to do, the sheer idiocy of my death and the blind happiness that had been my life, the black hole that was Vicky's heart and the broken hearts of my parents, my godparents, my friends, love and hate and jealously and compassion and everything that would never touch me again. I cried like a little kid, and I cried like a kid who had to grow up too fast. I cried like… like I was facing my own death, not only facing it but waving at it and putting flowers on my own grave… _Timmy Turner, 1994-2004_, it'd say… and that made me cry harder, I'd never even get to grow up enough so that I wouldn't _need_ my fairy godparents anymore—I was still only ten, and I still needed them, now more than ever, more than anything, and I'd never see them again and I'd spend eternity remembering them and how I'd never see them again…

_Please, please, Cosmo, Wanda, come back, come back and grant me just this one wish to be alive again… I'll never ever make a stupid wish like that again, I promise… just as long as you come back to me, let me live, let me have my friends again, please… please…_


	7. Pathetic Little Act

I woke up in the cabin again, lying on the floor and staring up at the ceiling. I didn't understand how I'd got back there… but then again, I could walk through walls and fly, who was I to question? For all I knew about real ghosts, I was haunting this cabin and had to stay near it or something…

Part of me wanted to hope it was a dream again, but now I knew better. Now I was cynical about it. Now I knew the difference—how it felt, both ways. For one thing, I couldn't feel the floor beneath me.

I leapt lightly up and drifted to my bunk, sitting in the air above it. It was highly depressing. There was still a dent in the sheets from… from the body. Where I'd been laying. There was my backpack, and sticking out of the top was the notebook my parents had sent with me to write letters home with, the cover filled with doodles of my fairies.

_No—no more crying. Not anymore. You finished that last night. Think about revenge._

Yes, revenge. I relaxed. I wanted to torment Vicky, to make _her_ cry, to make _her_ wish _she_ would die. That's all I wanted to hear—Vicky wishing she was dead. See how _she_ likes it. I grinned before remembering the huge failure I'd had the night before. Couldn't touch anything properly. Couldn't scream at Vicky. Couldn't scare her with flames.

I scowled, and glared at the chipper drawing of Cosmo, beaming at me off the notebook. _I bet it was him who granted my wish. He'd be dumb enough to do that…_

Another snarl, and I'd kicked my backpack onto the floor with a thunk. Being able to touch something made me smile again—maybe I just needed practice.

Silently, I apologized to Cosmo. _I didn't mean it… _then, remembering I was alone and no one could hear me, I added out loud, "I know you'd never have done it on purpose. I'm sorry…"

"Timmy?"

…except one person, the one person I now really, really wished couldn't hear me. Crud. I forgot Danny slept in the cabin with us—all the other kids were still out camping, I guessed, the sunlight had that early-morning kind of look to it. "Leave me alone," I said sulkily, flopping onto my side. But I just gave myself away… "Uh, and anyway, I'm not Timmy. I'm… um… Chester. And I don't want to talk to anyone, because I'm hiding!" Praying it would still work, I seized my blanket and hurled it over my head. Unfortunately, only my hands could touch it, and the dumb blanket fell right through me. Some hiding place that was. Lucky for my pathetic little act, Danny's bunk was off in the corner where neither of us could see each other.

I heard Danny sigh. "You want me to leave you alone. You and every other ghost in the world. If I thought I had any choice about it, I would. Believe me. All I wanted was a vacation, as much as you must have. Worked out great for us, huh?"

I wondered how long he'd been planning that little speech. Who did he think he was, The Crimson Chin? Some hero Danny made, crushing all the hopes of a sad little ghost boy. "I don't know what you're talking about," I replied shortly. "I told you, my name's Chester. I'm not a ghost."

"There's no Chester in this cabin," he retorted coolly. "I'm not stupid, you know."

"Could have fooled me…" Sighing, I tried again—I _had_ to, putting up a fight let me believe I was alive. "Besides, I'm actually in cabin 14. I'm just hiding in here." I'd like to see him reply to _that._

"Oh, well then, maybe I should take you back to your cabin." I could just picture the smirk on his face.

"No way!" I yelled back at him, tugging at my blanket again—it still refused to touch any part of me but my hands.

The door slammed open. I sat stark upright and stared at Vicky, framed in the door. They weren't supposed to get back until noon… maybe it was later than I thought?

"There!" Vicky screeched. "We're back! Now go to bed!"

The kids poured back inside after her, piling into their beds, just like she told them to. Good for them—was Vicky being extra mean, or just losing it? Sending them to bed at—what _time_ was it—in the morning?

"What happened? What's going on?" I asked hurriedly, but the other kids couldn't hear me, of course.

"Vicky?" I heard Danny climb out of his bed, and peeked over the side to watch him approach her, hiding as much as I could.

"Danny!" she cried back, switching to a perkier tone. "How _are_ you this morning? Me and the kids, we're exhausted, up all night, uh… singing songs! And telling ghost stories." She faked a big yawn. "Oh, now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get back to _my_ cabin. I have _got_ to get some sleep." She did look kind of tired, but what did I care? She killed me.

"Uh, wait!" Danny darted forward and grabbed her arm before she could escape. "I need to ask you—what happened to Timmy?"

Vicky froze and glared at him. "Serve you right, you evil witch," I muttered at her. The ability to talk back to her without danger kinda gave me a head rush. "Way to go, Danny, trap her with her lies!"

It was pretty funny watching Danny try to ignore me. "Uh, because you said he stayed behind, right?" he went on, pointedly not looking around for me. "But he—well, you can see he's not here. He hasn't been here all night."

Wrenching out of his grip, Vicky turned the tables and seized him by his collar. "Listen, dweeb, in case you've forgotten, _I'm in charge!_ That means you do what _I _say, and I say FORGET THE TWERP! _Got it?_"

"Threatening me won't make it go away!" Danny managed, despite the fact that he was cowering in the face of her fury. "Timmy's still not here and my question still stands!"

Despite myself, I was impressed. Not many people can stand up to her in the slightest way. Unfortunately for him, that seemed to only make her madder. With a snarl, she pulled him in close to her face.

"He's in the _infirmary_," she lied without any qualms, "where _you'll_ end up if you don't learn _respect_."

With that, she let go of him so suddenly he fell back against a bunk bed, and stormed out of the cabin.

Utter silence followed. Every kid in the cabin was staring at Danny with awe, owl-eyed and far from sleepy.

"Dude," the kid in the bunk across from mine, who I didn't know, piped up "you stood up to her and _survived_,"

Danny did not look pleased with the attention. "Yeah, I guess I did…" he said sheepishly.

"She's evil!" another kid I couldn't see cried fervently, only to be shushed by someone else.

"I'm starting to see what you mean…"He looked right at me as he said that, and stooped to pick up my backpack and return it to its rightful place. "What happened last night?"

"_She_ couldn't sleep," the first kid replied, eyes darting around like he expected Vicky to pop up out of nowhere and set him on fire. I could hardly blame him. "She kept accusing us of making noise to keep her awake. But we didn't do anything!"

"We had to sleep out on the ground, and _we _slept just fine," chimed in Ryan, the only kid in the cabin whose name I knew. "She was in a tent."

"_I _didn't hear any noises," yet another kid added. "I think she was trying to scare us. She's got it in for us."

"If Vicky was trying to scare you, you'd know it," I told the kid firmly, even though I knew he couldn't hear me.

"What—what sort of noises?" Danny asked, looking around from kid to kid. I took the opportunity to inch backwards towards the wall. Hopefully I could slip through it without any problems.

"Crying," Ryan told him matter-of-factly. "She said she heard someone crying."


	8. Worth It

Going through a wooden wall did not feel right, but finally I tumbled feet first out into the bright summer morning. There was no impact at all when I hit the ground—one thing I could touch without trying—and I rebounded into flight easily. I wished I could say flying was fun, but…

I could see her ahead. _Vicky. You thought you could get away with it, didn't you. But I know what you did. I know what you are. I'll make you pay._

Since she was the only girl in the entire camp, she got a cabin to herself.Naturally. Icky Vicky would never settle for anything less.

A sneer pulled at my face. Why should _she_ be treated so special? Why should she get anything at all? All she deserved was a fiery death a hundred times worse than anything she'd ever done to me… but just then I'd have settled for just scaring her to death… or even scaring her at all… I was willing to bet that once I got in, once I figured out how to scare her, it'd be a piece of cake, and more satisfying than a million days out of school. Just one scream, one wail of guilt, one simple sentence…_ Vicky sobbing, terrified in the dark, screaming, "I wish I was dead!"_ That would make it all worth it.

Worth my death? But it had to be. _Some_thing had to be worth it.

I caught up with her just in time to have the door slammed in my face… that, however, presented no problem for a ghost. I was almost expecting the splintery, dry, wooden feeling that going _though_ the door caused, but it made me wince anyway. It was like gnawing on a badly carved wooden spoon. No wonder ghosts were known for being cranky.

It stunned me, that I was still capable of humor after last night. Sure, it was bitter sarcasm, but it was kind of a relief. _I'm still me. I'm just dead. _And I hated Vicky more than ever, but that was no surprise.

I glared at her, flopped so casually on her bed. What the heck was she doing, acting like it was nothing, nothing at all. My life meant less to her than a few dollars did…

With a sudden jerk, she twisted and tossed to her side. Maybe she actually _was_ tired…

"So why should I care?" I snapped to myself. "She killed me."

Now Vicky sat up sharply, and I realized I had the upper hand—_she thought she was alone._ Had she heard me? No, didn't look like it. She grabbed her pillow and slammed it back down, glowering at it like it was a happy kid. Next thing I knew, feathers went flying as she punched the inanimate tar out of the thing, snarling as furious as I'd ever seen her. _So this is what Vicky does when she's alone?_ I found it a little bit hard to believe, but, then again, it was Vicky.

"TWERP!" she bellowed. Oh no, she saw me? I dove behind the door before I remembered that she couldn't, and peeked back out again.

No. She hadn't seen me, of course. She was attacking the pillow like… like… like it was me.

With a whump she hurled it to the floor. "You're dead!" she screamed, stomping on it, jumping and pounding it flat. "You're dead, do you hear me? Dead!"

"Geez, Vicky, what did the pillow ever do to you?" I muttered. Like she needed a reason. Maybe she decided to kill it because it wasn't fluffy enough."Practicing for your next murder?"

Completely ignoring everything I was saying, she kicked the pillow against the door, abandoning it where it landed, turning away to dig in a bag next to her bed. I'd never seen someone whale on a pillow like that before—it looked like it had seen its last fluff. But then, for all I knew Vicky tried to kill her pillows every morning. Maybe I could make it explode or something… I poked it experimentally. My hand went right through it this time.

"Darn it," I muttered. Pillows were more complicated than blankets. Must be all those feathers inside… _or maybe you lost it. Maybe you can't touch anything anymore._ But I didn't want to think like that. Vicky. Think about Vicky. Think about revenge. I focused my attention on her again, as she triumphantly pulled out a…

"A teen magazine?" I scoffed, but she grinned and plunged right in, collapsing back on her bed again. Reading magazines was not what evil people like her were supposed to be doing at a time like this.

"Well, what _is_ she supposed to be doing?" I asked myself conversationally. "Screaming in agony, perhaps?" I thought about it. _Vicky screaming in agony, her eyes bulging in fear, unable to even move because of the pain… _"Yeah, I'll accept that."

So how could I manage that? I couldn't _do_ anything. Worse, nothing got _through_ to her. The only thing I'd seen really faze her in ages was whatever it was she thought she heard last night, and all that did was make her tired and cranky. Mysterious crying? Puh-lease. Maybe it kept her up, but it was probably just some kid who didn't want the others to think he was a crybaby.

_Timmy, _you_ were crying last night._

Like it mattered. I wanted to _scare_ her, not give her ammo to use against the other kids.

All I had to do was figure out _how_…


	9. Cold Blooded

There is nothing more boring than watching Vicky read a magazine.

And it wasn't just one, oh no. She had a whole stack of the dumb things that she read, one after another, all while I sat there screaming at her, trying desperately to get the teeniest little reaction out of her. Nothing worked.

Someone knocked on the door.

Man, I must have really zoned out—I couldn't even remember when she closed it. But Vicky scowled, hurled her magazines on the floor, and flung the door open.

"What?" she snapped. Surprise, surprise—it was Danny. The only person in the entire camp who'd taken the slightest interest in her wellbeing, unless you counted wanting to destroy it. I rolled my eyes.

Danny, breathing fog again, glanced at me but didn't seem to care much that I was there. "Um, I just came because—it's lunch time. Thought you might want to know."

"Great!" she crowed, suddenly switching to that fake-nice voice of hers that make me really wish I could hit her. "Thanks for telling me! I'll see you there! _Bye_!" The last word had a little of her familiar snarl in it. Danny didn't flinch.

"Well, I'm heading there now," he said in a reasonable tone of voice. "Maybe you should come with me—uh, I mean… do you want to?"

Vicky and me both gaped at him. She looked completely bewildered, but at least I knew what he was up to. "You're trying to protect her from me?" Still hard for me to believe. I shook my head. "She's _evil_. You should be protecting _me_ from _her_!" _Too late anyway._

Danny glared at me for a second, as Vicky replied, "Uh, sure, okay," sounding as baffled as she looked. She stepped outside after him. What choice did I have? I slipped out just before she closed the door, saving myself the creepiness of going _through_ the door again.

It'd be tough figuring out how to scare Vicky out of her wits with Danny around making trouble, but what else could I do? It wasn't like I'd gotten much of anywhere with my plan, and chasing after her when she was actually doing something was bound to be more entertaining than brainlessly watching her read magazines. And if I was lucky, I could make Danny really mad at me too, for talking to him when no one else could hear me. So I was lonely. What did he care? …and most kids weren't used to having fairies around for them to talk to all the time. Who weren't there anymore. But I didn't care, I couldn't care. I was on my way to lunch with Vicky, a perfect opportunity to find out if I could blow up her camp food, Danny or no Danny.

A ghost's sense of time sucked. While I floated there thinking deep thoughts of vengeance, I'd lost them. With a sigh and a grunt, I sped into flight to catch up with them.

Because it was such a nice day—the weather, I mean—lunch was outside the mess hall, on picnic tables in the open air. I suddenly remembered a few days ago, when I was cheerfully eating _my _lunch at one of those tables. I'd give anything to be able to do that again…

There, I spotted them. Vicky, slamming her tray down on a table while Danny trailed along behind her, sliding into the seat across from her. No more present than a breeze, I glided over to them, silent as… well, as a ghost.

"Why do you keep following me?" Vicky snapped at him the way she does, jumping down his throat. Smart girl, if pure evil, she could see right through Danny's little game… hard to know who to root for.

His eyes rolled upward, looked like he was thinking fast. "What, I'm not allowed to sit at the same table as you? Everywhere else is pretty full," he pointed out, sounding perfectly reasonable. But if he was sitting across from her, how could I do anything to Vicky without being seen?

I darted under the table quick as a wink, where I could hide while I figured out something to do. Maybe I could reach out from underneath and dump her plate on her lap.

"So… how are you today?" he went on, sounding more awkward and forced than anything else I'd ever heard him say. And he was as distracted as he was going to get. I couldn't wait any longer—carefully, I stretched my hand around the edge of the table and felt around for her plate.

"What do _you_ care?" she shot back shrilly. My hand felt nothing, nothing… no, wait, I felt a weird, cold, goopy sort of sensation as my hand went right through her disgusting camp food.

"Darn it," I muttered, and tugged my hand back. Oops. I shouldn't have said anything. Did he hear me?

Maybe not. There was no sound from up above, except for a sudden clatter, and a fork fell onto the grass beside me.

"Whoops!" Danny said loudly. "Would you excuse me? I have to get my fork."

And all at once I was no longer alone under the table. I let out a surprised squeak, but Danny ignored me.

"You have got to cut it out, Timmy!" he hissed under his breath. "I'm trying to help you! I'm trying to figure out what happened!"

I rolled my eyes. "You know what happened. Vicky killed me!"

"She did not," he retorted as silently as he could.

"How do _you_ know?" Hah. See him get out of that.

"I don't," Danny whispered calmly. "That's what I'm trying to figure out. That's why I'm spending all my spare time trying to get the nastiest, most unpleasant girl I've ever met to talk to me."

At least he admitted she wasn't just _not very nice_. "Are you nuts? It'll never work. She's not gonna tell you what happened because she doesn't _care._ She's a cold-blooded killer. She's pure evil. She doesn't have _feelings_." Well, except rage, but that was beside the point.

But Danny was gaping at me, and he looked horrified. "Timmy! How can you _say_ that? You don't really think that's true, do you?"

"I know it's true," I replied. He'd get to know the real Vicky soon enough.

"I know she's mean, I know you hate her, but geez, Timmy, she's a teenage girl! She's just as human as I am—well, as you are anyway…"

"Were," I corrected him coldly. "Thanks to her."

"Whatever." He collected himself and went on. "She's not some comic book supervillain. She's mean, but she's not _evil…_"

A whoosh through my chest took the breath out of me, or would have if I'd been actually breathing, and Vicky's foot connected squarely with Danny's chest, knocking him back out from under the table and making him eat his own words.

"How long does it take to get a fork?" Vicky growled. Evil. Evil! Couldn't she even tell she'd just kicked the one guy who was trying to defend her? Didn't she even care? Of course not. She couldn't. But I knew what she _could_ care about…

Snakelike, I seized her leg and sank my teeth into it, savoring her shriek of pain. I did it. I did it! I touched her, and I hurt her! I could really do it, and I could do it again!

She grabbed her leg and pulled it up to look at it, Danny was staring at me in something like shock from his vantage point of several feet away. He couldn't stop me. No one could. Vicky'd be begging for her own death by tomorrow.

I grinned proudly. But the world seemed to be fading again, getting darker and blacker, like I was falling asleep or just fading away…

"Timmy," he called after me as softly as he could, but then I couldn't hear him anymore.


	10. Your Fault

_Timmy._

_Listen to me._

A voice. Was it mine?

_You know this isn't right. Remember what happened?_

I saw myself lying back on the bunk bed, still alive, still breathing, but nearly as miserable as being a ghost ever made me. I was tired and cold, my clothes were still wet, my nose was running, and I was almost in tears. But it was nothing compared to being dead. I knew that now, but then I thought it was just as bad or even worse, then I thought I might as well be dead.

"I wish I was dead," I heard the words come out of my live mouth, and I couldn't put them back. I couldn't take it back, and this time I saw my eyes widen in horror, saw the blood drain from my face, heard myself stop breathing… I saw myself die. I saw myself die, just because I had wished it for one second, one measly second. I was dead because I had wished for it.

_It's your fault, isn't it?_

No. That wasn't it. If I had known, if I'd understood that I really would have died, I never would have wished for it. Never. No, I knew whose fault it was…

Now I saw what I'd never seen before… my fairies, deep in the darkness of my backpack, disguised as a pencil and pen, and just as miserable as I was out of worry for me. They knew they couldn't help me with so many people around, and the five minutes alone I'd snagged in the cabin had run out so quickly… I was so busy taking a break from it all to wallow in misery that I never even thought to wish it better in the short time I had. And they had to stay hidden, because they knew someone could come in any minute.

"I wish I was dead." The words floated to them, and they looked shocked. Stunned. Horrified that I would ever say such a thing, that I could wish for it. I was sure it had to be against the Rules, but Cosmo and Wanda raised their wands anyway, bracing themselves and wincing away from it, and in an instant it was all over, I was gone and so were they. They never should have granted my wish. They should have known better. Why didn't Wanda protest, why didn't she insist I think carefully about my words so I could take it back? Why didn't Cosmo ask me why I would wish for something like that so I could quickly say I didn't mean it? Why didn't their wands not work and blow raspberries? Why _did_ it work?

_But no. It couldn't be their fault. They didn't have a choice, did they?_

I guessed not. It would be so much easier to believe that if they were here to apologize for it, if they hadn't abandoned me, but it had to be true. They'd never let any harm come to me on purpose.

No, I knew where the blame went. I knew it all along.

Vicky. She shoved me into the rotten boat, and she _knew_ it'd never hold. She made me miserable every day of my life, screaming at me and beating me up, torturing me and tormenting me until I cried. The sound of my wailing made her laugh. And she couldn't ever let me be happy, she couldn't leave me alone. She was a demon. She was evil, pure and simple.

"I wish I was dead." She never even heard the words, but she made them happen. Without her, I would have been happy, I would have been safe, I would have been alive. I never would have wished I was dead if it wasn't for her, making my life so miserable I _did_ wish I was dead.

"You're dead, Twerp, you're dead!" I heard her scream as she ripped her pillow to shreds, as feathers flew and she killed me again and again in her mind's eye. She killed me. And she knew it. And she didn't care.

"Good riddance, Twerp!" And I saw her toss me over the cliff without regret, without the slightest shred of human sympathy, crushing my last thread of hope in the rocks and briars at the ground level. I couldn't bear to picture my sad little broken body, cut and snapped and beginning to rot, but she didn't care at all as long as it didn't connect to her anymore. The last second she could have redeemed herself, and she threw it away, over the edge with my body. She hated me so much. She killed me. It was her fault, I knew. She was the reason I was dead.

_No. That's not it at all. You know that, right? You know the only reason it happened is because you wished for it, right?_

Vicky was the reason for it, Vicky was the cause of my death, Vicky was my killer, and she'd _pay_ for it. Now that I knew I could do it. She'd pay. I'd _make_ her sorry. I'd _make _her wish she was dead. And maybe then I'd let her have it.

_You're not listening to me._

My eyes snapped open, and I came back to the world, in the cabin where I'd died once more.

Oh, I'd make her pay. I'd see her _suffer_. I'd see her die.


End file.
